Day in the Life –
Grinding Through April…
I always forget about April – I think that is the way it is
supposed to be in teacher world. In our
area, spring break is always the first week of April, and we then return to
weeks of cramming and testing. The
return is probably the hardest of the year, but if we just make it to May, the
end of the tunnel comes very quickly.
Every year I forget what a storm this is to march through, and here is
one of my days in the midst of it.
6:30am – Finally
drag myself out of bed; it is getting harder and harder everyday as we are in
the final weeks. It is an up-do day for
the hair, so I can grab 15 extra minutes of sleep….
7:30am: - Leave
for school. My new drive is farther than
last semester, but takes less time as I am going opposite of traffic. It is a perfect blend – extra time to think
about the day than I had in previous years, but no traffic to aggravate me from
doing soJ
7:45-8:25am: Arrive at school. Finish notes for Algebra 2 support to review
normal distributions with empirical rule and standard normal distributions with
z-scores. Kiddos have been in and out of
their Algebra 2 regular classes this week due to testing, so this is both teach
and re-teach.
8:25-10:10am - 1st
and 2nd hour is Algebra 2 support, so we work on the normal
distributions, but save finding cut-off values for tomorrow. I can feel they are on full after empirical
rule and z-scores. Somewhat innately,
but mostly with experience, a teacher can feel that “on-full” feeling from
students; it seems to thicken the air.
10:15 – 11:04am - 3rd
period prep. I update grades with
homework and quiz corrections. Grading
policies in this district are new to me, but I love them. 70% weight on Summative assessments and 30%
weight on formative assessments/grades such as quizzes and homework. For quiz grades, students are allowed to make
corrections on quizzes for half of their missed points back, so it is truly
formative in process. I am a big fan of
analyzing mistakes, so this to me is a great practice that is in place here.
11:10 – 12pm – 4th
period Advanced Mathematical Decision Making.
Today the students are taking their 4th out 5 foundational
algebra quizzes; today is operations of radicals. Afterwards, they are allowed time to get
caught up on their Life-Project journal reflections. More on that later.
12:05-1:50pm – 5th
and 6th period planning and lunch.
Yep – inordinate amounts of time here for prep and having a decent lunch. I make copies for the rest of the week, keys
to upload to the class website, and finish quiz correction grading and grade
updates.
1:55-3:40pm – 7th
and 8th period Algebra 2. We
started notes on z-scores, so we continue through with the application of them
today and working backwards from a cut-off percent. We are headed towards a quiz on Friday, so it
is a race against time – this is something here that I am having a hard time
getting used to. Great discussions with
the content for application though, which saves what can be a pretty dry
topic. 7th period is a
large class, so a little more of a challenge to stay on task, but we made
it! 8th period is small, so
we are able to have more in depth conversations within the content delivery.
3:40 -4pm – Drive
home – enjoying this time to reflect on the day and think about the rest of the
week. I am definitely thinking
group-work review for tomorrow. Also
feeling sad that I am not able to attend MCTM this year in Duluth, MN. My pre-service work and first year of
teaching began with this organization, and it is a great organization with
passionate teachers and super-rich professional development. I try to get back every couple of years, but
not going to make it this time.
4:00-5pm – Time
to talk to hubs and re-boot before tutoring starts. Grab a snack and new cup of coffee.
5:00-7pm - Two tutoring sessions, both for pre-calculus,
but at different levels. Matrix work for
one, and probability distributions for another.
Done early tonight as I am exhausted and need to shut it down for the
evening.
7:00-9pm – Spend
time with my family, peruse Twitter and MTBoS, and at 9pm I am in bed. Time for a good night’s sleep for a change!
Reflection Questions:
1) Teacher make a lot
of decisions throughout the day.
Sometimes we make so many it feels overwhelming. When you think about today, what is a
decision/teacher move you made that you are proud of? What is one you are worried about?
The current teaching position I walked into was a tough
one. The students had lost their
teacher, and one class had lost a classmate in the same time period. Attendance was low in the morning support
classes and the AMDM course, and students were not used to a consistent routine
in the classroom. Although I did not
implement all of my classroom expectations, I did use many. The students were resistant of course at
first, but not for long. I am glad that I
pushed through with the expectations and kept at the challenge of knowing the
balance of when to push new ideas and when was enough. Attendance has improved greatly in support
class as well as engagement, and working relationships have been formed with students. My seniors still worry me with their
diminishing work ethic, so I worry about the decision to do a big project at
the end of the year. Still, it is a good
one that gives them great life problem-solving skills.
2) Every person’s life is full of highs and
lows. Share with us some of what that is
like as a teacher. What are you looking
forward to? What has been a challenge
for you lately?
Even though I just went back into a classroom in March, I
still am looking forward to summer.
Summer means rest and re-charge.
Summer means the beach and free time to get all those tasks around the
house done that you put off and are now stressful. Summer is a time to spend with friends and
family more than you get to do so during the year. This year has been quite a ride for me at two
new and different schools, as well as time off and reflections and realizations
I never thought I would have.
What has been challenging for me lately is that I do not
have a permanent job for next year. I
have tried not to stress too much about it, but easier said than done. There are always openings at the beginning of
the year, but knowing now would be much easier.
What I do know is that I do want to teach and be in a classroom
somewhere, somehow.
3) We are reminded constantly of how relational
teaching is. As teachers we work to
build relationships with teachers and students.
Describe a relational moment you had with someone lately.
In my senior AMDM class, I have 2 male students who have
enlisted in the Marines and are off to basic training as soon as they
graduate. They are some of the most polite
and mature students I have, and they will make excellent soldiers for our
country. Because my son was in the Army
reserves, and my brother in-law was in the Air Force for many years, I have
been able to share knowledge and interest in their pursuits after high
school. I was also able to use my
brother in-law and son’s experiences from the military to better personalize
parts of these 2 students Life Projects.
I have enjoyed the conversations we have shared as well as listening to
them talk about their thoughts as they head into the military in a time of
potential unrest on the globe.
4) Teachers are always working on
improving, and are often have specific goals for things to work on throughout the year. What have
you been doing to work on your goal? How
are you doing?
One of my goals at the beginning of the year was to try and
spiral homework daily throughout a unit.
At my new school, the pacing of content is super-fast even for on-level
courses; there is barely time to cover the work needed let alone spiral. I have been incredibly uncomfortable with the
pacing in Algebra 2, but I have to keep reminding myself that different is not
necessarily bad. Still, I have been
teaching long enough to know that this type of pacing does not leave much room
for depth of understanding. We have to
all test on the same day, so I am not able to branch out like I would like to,
and I am a guest teacher, so delay of testing is not something I can campaign
for.
I am now realizing that my next DITL post is the last day of
school… Just one month left -that’s pretty exciting!
Until thenJ
